Microsoft Finally Makes It Official That It Opposes SOPA.... As Written

from the note-the-caveat dept

Early on, Microsoft was a quiet -- but definite -- supporter of PIPA. When it came to SOPA, however, apparently had concerns... though it never said anything publicly, until now. On the eve of mass blackouts and protests, Microsoft has released a weak statement about how it opposes the bill "as written," which is somewhat meaningless, given that the bill is about to undergo a revision any way. Notice, too, that they only say SOPA... and not PIPA? Is it really that hard for Microsoft to realize that the whole concept behind these bills is broken? Or is Microsoft just confirming for us that it's past the "innovation" stage of its lifespan, and now moved on to the death spiral of "protecting the way things used to be?"

I think its a bit more nuanced than that. MS is the largest provider of DNS services to US corporate clients (anyone running Active Directory uses MS DNS somewhere).

Regardless of their views, personal or corporate, on DNS blocking (or anything of that nature, redirection, signing etc) their customers MUST be confident that they will always be compliant of US law while using MS DNS products.

It's quite significant that Microsoft has said anything at all, and I think even just a small statement like that speaks volumes against it. I'm happy that they have officially said they oppose the bill, however brief the statement.

Thanks

Calls into question Google's preposterous claims of the extraordinary burden of search engine blocking. MS a both a victim of piracy and a search engine sees the situation in a balanced fashion and makes the right decision. Again, Google simply has no significant content business so it invents reasons why it cannot be subject to regulation. Should make for an interesting hearing with MS explaining why they can and Google explaining why it can't.

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You can't be serious? They definitely earned their keep by developing DOS and Windows, particularly back when Unix was a complete motherbitch to figure out and Linux was just a twinkle in some programmer's eye. Really for the average user the only other option was to buy a mac and deal with a rather closed system involving a mouse with only 1 button.
Can you imagine that lady in the office with the cutesy puppy calendar trying to learn Unix just to make spreadsheets?
With office and other products I'd say they've continued to do good things. I don't want to stick up for the monopolistic tactics used against companies, particularly ones like Netscape, but I'm glad that we have somewhat of a standard for office document files, and that isn't some terrible output of a company like Lotus, Real, Adobe, etc. MS just plain makes a better product. Things may be changing with OpenOffice on the scene now but really you can't deny what they have accomplished.

I also feel like the hardware division has done very well for itself, right up at the top with Logitech, Sony, Apple, etc. Not really setting new standards there yet AFAIK. Wait, .net is a cross platform microcontroller OS. Yep, still innovating. I'm still salty about the new xbox menu though, I really WANT to hate them, but you can't deny what they've done.

MS, Supply and Demand and SOPA

You can't really expect any business whose business model depends on artificial scarcity created by government intervention (in the form of monopoly grants called "copyrights" and "patents") to wholeheartedly oppose these measures. Microsoft is only doing this so as not to alienate customers: they, like Hollywood, the recording industry and dead-tree publishers, have failed to adopt the CwF + RtB business model and remain a lawsuit factory.

Such businesses would rather infringe civil liberties and destroy the internet than succumb to the law of supply and demand that naturally drives the cost of any good which can be produced in arbitrary quantity at near zero marginal cost (which includes not just digitized text, audio, images, and video, but software) inexorably toward zero. But that law exists and SOPA, PIPA or any other bill of that ilk will not repeal it.

"Piracy" is not theft (since copyrights and patents aren't actually property -- if they were they'd be of infinite duration as actual property doesn't suddenly become public simply by virtue of the passage of time, and copying does not deprive those who had a copy of their copy as theft of property does), but the inevitable black market (in copies of digital goods) created by government intervention in the economy.

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"They definitely earned their keep by developing DOS"

They bought DOS, windows was copied from Xerox Parc, every app they have was copied from someone else. The only reason they exist is because they got there early, and used questionable business practices.

I said it before and I'll say it again. Microsoft will cease to exist as a meaningful tech company within 10 years and with over 60,000 patents, will go on to becone the worlds biggest patent troll. Book it.

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You've covered the development time, but what about getting together the specifications for the change... need to make sure all the stakeholders are aligned... don't forget about the QA time and there'd probably be a public beta or tech demo out for a while I'd think more like Q4 or even Q1 2013